Title: The CaptureNumber: 06
Narrator: Jake
"Hi, I'm Jake, and I don't have a last name and my friends and I can turn into animals to fight brainslug aliens."
You know the drill.
We start with Tom trying to get Jake to join the Sharing, but Jake brushes him off before he leaves. He then takes the opportunity to morph into a cockroach and nearly gets caught up in a roach trap before morphing back.
The other kids come over and give him a hard time about trying a new morph alone, especially an insect one. After some banter Jake sobers up and admits that he's caught his brother Tom's yeerk making phone calls to multiple doctors who all work at the same local hospital. Turns out they're planning on using hospitals as infection centers, where they can insert yeerks without really any potential snooping.
Later that night Jake bugs Tomtroller about brotherly stuff and realizes that even though yeerks can imitate people pretty well, they aren't really used to our human emotions and can be manipulated into letting their masks drop for just a moment or two. Tomtroller starts trying to recruit Jake to the Sharing by appealing to his ego, calling him to be a part of something bigger and greater. Jake rejects his offer because he's not a space slug.
The following day the Animorphs are practicing cockroach morphs so they can sneak into the hospital. We get some wonderfully graphic imagery of people turning into cockroaches and they discuss what to do about people like Tom, because it turns out that Visser Three might kill Tomtroller if the Animorphs win. They decide to make it pure spying, and to decide what to do about the actual hospital once they know exactly what's going on by infiltrating a Sharing meeting and seeing what the plans are.
The next night the Animorphs turn into cockroaches and go to the Sharing meeting. Once there they wander around and realize that it's less a youth club and more a yeerk rally. Then Visser Three shows up and explains the plan:
1. Use the hospital and its infected staff to make 200 new controllers per month.
2. Use the hospital and its infected staff to turn the governor into a controller when he comes in for surgery.
Rachel points out that the governor is gearing up to run for president (which unfortunately means that this governor is not Schwarzenegger) and that a controller president would pretty much cinch the invasion for the yeerks. After escaping, which includes a fairly unsettling scene of someone using bug spray on Jake they all reconvene and Tobias says he saw Tomtroller get into Visser Three's limo. Considering this was Tom's idea and Visser Three enforces a high turnover rate, Jake's got some inner turmoil to overcome.
The Animorphs decide to infiltrate the hospital as flies instead of cockroaches. Tobias flies them to the building, they enter through a window, and eventually find the room with a jacuzzi full of yeerks. They stake out the room as Jake goes about rigging the jacuzzi's temperature to rise to 120 F, which Ax says will be enough to kill them. Unfortunately, a pair of controllers enters just then and alerts everyone that they're there. They pull out their guns and fire, Jake gets hit by a ricochet, and falls face-first into the yeerk jacuzzi.
Whoops.
As the fight in the room continues, Jake throws up and suddenly gets a monstrous headache and collapses. Marco, as a gorilla, picks him up and they get the hell out. As they move, Jake gets some thought-speech that seems to come from no where. As they continue to run he starts disassociating with his physical body and realizes that, yes, he's become a controller.
What follows is pretty dark, as Jake tries his best to rebel against the brainslug, but it just mocks him and forces him to watch his worst memories. The powerlessness actually comes through the dialogue, as Jake tries desperately to show any outward sign that he's not, well, Jake. The yeerk starts talking through his mouth and the other Animorphs buy it completely, because they're young adults in the early days of a war.
Luckily, Ax is a child soldier, so when the yeerk accidentally lets some hate show on Jake's face he calls him out on it and, despite Jaketroller's protests, they go along with Tobias's suggestion to hold him in isolation for three days. Ax is going to morph Jake and take his place until they're sure he's yeerk-free. When he goes to acquire Jake, Jaketroller tells him to get his stinking hooves off him, the damned, dirty andalite. That pretty much confirms his yeerkishness and they lead him away to where Tobias knows of a shack in the woods.
Temrash plays the wrong card and just further confirms their suspicions. They tie Jaketroller up, but that doesn't stop the yeerk from babbling in Jake's mind about how he's going to escape, get promoted, and take over their planet. It's the standard yeerk mania. After the rest leave (they decide to have two people watch him at all times) the yeerk messes with Jake by showing him memories of his life, mostly his most embarrassing fantasies (about being better than Tom at basketball) and some of his dumber memories.
That night when Rachel is on watch (and "asleep") Jaketroller morphs into a tiger and tries to escape. He succeeds in escaping the shack and runs into the forest, where the yeerk immediately becomes hopelessly lost and hunted down by the other Animorphs. He tries morphing into a falcon to fly, but Cassie as a horned owl comes in and absolutely shuts him down. The yeerk tries morphing into a wolf and runs away, but he wanders into territory belonging to a different pack and they...absolutely shut him down.
Come on buddy.
At every turn the Animorphs corner Temrash, from Marco showing up to deliver a pretty stinging monologue, to Cassie morphing into a flea and hiding in his hair. He gets outplayed each time and eventually surrenders. They lead Jaketroller back to the shack, where Temrash continues to mess with Jake by showing him some of Tom's memories.
Yes, that's right, this yeerk used to be in Tom's head. He torments Jake even more by showing him stuff from Tom's life, how he was trapped in his head, and how he only joined the Sharing because of a girl. Jake fights back the best he can, but there's only so much you can do against a slug inside your head.
The next day Temrash morphs an ant but gets beaten back by an enemy any colony. He bemoans that Earth wildlife is pretty brutal compared to other places in the universe and starts suffering from Kandrona withdrawal. Jake feels the yeerk wrapped around its brain physically die, and he suddenly gets a vision of a creature/machine with a big, lidless, blood-red eye sitting on a mile-high throne. The sight fills Jake with dread, but then it vanishes, the yeerk crawls from Jake's ear, and dies on the floor.
Jake goes back to his parents house and we find out that Ax has been comically humanesque, eating everything, pronouncing things strangely, and generally being pretty andalite-esque. That night he has another dream where he's a tiger chasing Tom, but this one ends with the roles reversed.
The novel ends with Jake making a payphone call to Tom, telling him not to give up.
Some Thoughts
* There was a two-part episode of the television series based on this novel, and they're the episodes I remember most clearly (that is to say, more than I remember the others). Shawn Ashmore (Iceman from the X-Men movies) played Jake, and while I don't remember much about his performance, this episode really creeped me out.
* Shawn Ashmore will always be Jake to me, no matter what other roles he plays.
* The kids are obviously still new to this, what with their discussions of their strategies in front of a suspected Controller. Regardless of whether he is or not, would you really take that chance?
* This is the first time an Animorph gets Controlled, but is it the last? No. But this is the first time we see the effects of a Yeerk poking through someone's brain, and it's eerie. One of Applegate's favorite ways of talking about Yeerks is to compare their memory browsing to flipping through a book, and hearing the yeerk make comments to itself as it learns which memories to pull from is a nice touch.
* Temrash-114 is an idiot. This is the first real close-up look we get into a Yeerk's thought process, and this guy isn't the standard. We get to know some other Yeerks pretty well later on, and Temrash-114 stands out as the one that probably should have stayed in a Taxxon host. He lets his hatred of Andalites get the better of him, which is funny because this yeerk was chosen by Visser Three to take over the governor.
* The weirdest description Applegate uses to describe being Controllered is that the yeerk is using Jake's brain without Jake being completely aware of how. It's a pretty unsettling bit in the moments before Temrash lets his mask slip.
* This is the first time we see some indication of a wider game being played between powers. Ultimately I think this is the first book where the greater myth arc starts in earnest and where the series as a story starts. It's the first book after every narrator has been introduced, and it's the start of the second narrative cycle that starts with Jake.
Character Sheets
* Jake: The leader. Gets infested with a yeerk, which causes some trouble, but he ultimately makes it through with his friend's help. Honestly cares about his brother, and a good bit of drama comes from him having to reconcile the fact that an alien general lives in his brother's body. Acquires cockroach and house fly morphs. Kills one yeerk through starvation, and one jacuzzi full of yeerks via boiling them alive.
* Rachel: Jake's cousin, the bruiser. She's pragmatic and we're starting to see the hints of a growing bloodthirst, but she's still a young teen girl and has all of that stuff weighing on her mind. Tends to fill the Enforcer role, but she already possesses a fair mind for strategy. Acquires cockroach, housefly, and great horned owl morphs.
* Cassie: The bleeding heart. This is a necessity, considering the grimness of the Animorph's work. Though her compassion can sometimes seem a disadvantage, she ultimately proves to be a great team member simply because her compassion lets her come up with plans beyond "break the door in, kill everyone." Acquires cockroach, housefly, and great horned owl morphs.
* Marco: Originally the reluctant one, he's now all in now that he knows his Momtroller is in charge of the earth invasion. It's mentioned several times that Marco's attitude has changed recently, and Jake is the only other one to know why. Acquires cockroach and housefly morphs.
* Ax: An Andalite cadet, he's the newest member of the team. While he tends to serve as comic relief, Ax is often the source of the most dismemberment in the series, as his tail seems to cut through human beings like butter. He helps the human members of the team understand their situation, while also being in over his head. Acquires cockroach, housefly, and Jake morphs.
Visser Three: Dick Cheney in the body of a scorpion-centaur. Executes subordinates who don't follow his orders. Enjoys eating sentient beings. Tends to show up, gloat, and leave without ever having to back himself up.
